


Fall In

by ashtopop



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Deacon POV, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Photographic Memory, Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5539682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was interesting, and he couldn’t help being interested. The Railroad knew her as the professor, the newest agent with a record that was beginning to outstrip his own.  In Diamond City they called her Kafka. In Goodneighbor she’d introduced herself as Dostoyevsky, but told Hancock he could call her “Dusty” with a wink.</p><p>Codsworth called her Olivia, and that fit her best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall In

She doesn't lock the safe under her bed in Sanctuary. It's... quaint. Old world. Inside are two wedding rings, two holotapes (he thinks one of them is H2-22's goodbye) and a scrap of legal paper still holding the creases he folded into it.

She hadn't read it.

Did she know? Maybe. But then… he remembered her quiet intensity when he told her he was a synth. The way she’d nodded solemnly and tucked the paper into her pocket. Her behavior toward him hadn’t changed, though, still all casual flirtation and friendly barbs.

He glanced at her from behind mirrored sunglasses, her tongue at the corner of her lips in concentration, trying to fit a new mod on a gun she lovingly dubbed “Vera.” He wondered how Pauline and Beverly would feel about the new combat shotgun on the roster, but she assured him there was nothing better for feral ghouls short of a mini nuke.

She was interesting, and he couldn’t help being interested. The Railroad knew her as the professor, the newest agent with a record that was beginning to outstrip his own.  In Diamond City they called her Kafka. In Goodneighbor she’d introduced herself as Dostoyevsky, but told Hancock he could call her “Dusty” with a wink.

Codsworth called her Olivia, and that fit her best.

She bent down, arms buried in the mountain of junk—junk she called treasure—she kept by her workbenches. “With you overloaded and all, let me take this chance to read my unabridged copy of  _War and Peace_ at you,” he quipped.

“Well, Prince, take this toaster and meet me at the family estate,” she responded, tossing said toaster over her shoulder. He caught it with one hand, eyes narrowing. He was testing her memory again, but she didn’t know that. And _he_ only knew she’d just paraphrased the opening line of _War and Peace_ because he’d come prepared. A suspicion had been forming in the back of his mind since he referenced Shakespearian lines involving death and inevitable doom and she had quoted four separate plays as war cries after her own laugh. A week or two later he’d mentioned reading Proust and she’d given him a copy she had stashed away on a bookshelf, forgetting to mention it was in _French_. When he asked Curie about it, she’d just seemed surprised that _madame had not mentioned she spoke French, even though she spoke it so beautifully._

Maybe she just knew her literature. So he started testing other things: pre-war history, conversations with Tinker Tom from weeks ago, the coordinates of their last mission. Occasionally she doesn’t know things, of course, but only things she’s never learned—not things she’s forgotten. He wasn’t even testing her, though, when he said something offhand about meeting her the first time.

“Are you counting Diamond City?” she asked, eyes still on the Astoundingly Awesome Tales in front of her, a meat kabob of unknown origin in her hand. He rounded on her.

“Do you have a photographic memory?” he asked. She looked up, dusky pink lips slightly parted in surprise. His consternation grew as an angry red flush spread up her neck and onto her cheeks. She flipped the page of her magazine, pretending to be absorbed in it, eyes fixed on one point on the page. Oh, shit. Her blue eyes were full and she blinked carefully.

“Hey- hey,” he said. He sat down. “Sorry. It was just a theory. Forget I ask-" he put his hands on his head, currently covered with a pompadour wig, elbows on the picnic table, and gave up. _Forget I asked_. Jesus. _He_ wanted to forget that. She looked up at him, but not at his sunglasses—not at his eyes. He’d been trying to put his finger on what emotion she was displaying—she wasn’t angry, he’d seen that righteous wrath, gotten the t-shirt and hard, but she wasn’t sad, either. She was-

“Yes,” she said, her voice small. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

_Humiliated_.

“Of course not,” he said, voice low. He leaned in, his shoulder brushing hers. “Hey, no problem, right? Curie has a memory like a steel trap and you still like her."

“It’s different now,” she said, fists curled hard against her emotions, knuckles white. She wasn’t talking to him, though, voice low to herself. “No one remembers. No one cares. Think about Goodneighbor. Think about Hancock.” She breathed fast through her nose. He waited, witticisms stilled in the wake of her emotional struggle.

“My mother was addicted to X-cell,” she said, her eyes closing. She didn’t want to see his face as she told him, he realized. His heart clenched in sympathy for her fear of rejection, even if he didn’t know the story behind it. “Before the war, well, X-cell was prototype. My mother was in college when she started. Anything to get an edge over other peoples' genetic modifications. X-cell is extremely addictive. Rare now, but it used to be huge on the black market—before they found out what it did in utero.” She paused, and opened her eyes just enough to peek at him. Apparently what she saw was reassuring enough, so she continued.

“I got the least of it,” she said, with a vague gesture at her temple. “Birth defects kept it off the shelves, but it was still popular on the black market when I went to college myself. It was a huge stigma, to be 'X-cellent’” she said, with a bitter twist of lips.  

“What’s it… like?” he asked, feeling guilty, but curious enough to ask.

“It’s horrible,” she said, her fists clenching again. “And it’s… beautiful. I remember the look in Nate’s eyes when he first held Shaun. And… I remember the exact taste of atomic wind burning down my throat.” Her eyes were still closed.

The kiss had been coming for a long time, probably since the first time he saw her in Goodneighbor, even if she hadn’t seen him. He reached for her, his thumb brushing against her jaw and his eyes on her lips. He drew her in, gentle pressure guiding her forward as he moved to meet her. Their lips touched and she inhaled quickly, tentative hands moving up his waist to rest on his shoulders as he deepened the kiss. It was soft and warm, and he could feel the tension seeping out of her. Their foreheads pressed together when they both needed a breath, contact maintained and eye contact unnecessary.

“‘Hello, words, I’m actions and I’m speaking awfully loud,’” she quoted in a whisper, remembering him convincing Desdemona she was worth the risk. He didn’t make any revelations—promises were lies that just hadn’t come to fruition yet. You can't trust everyone, after all.

But it was enough to trust one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> so when I found out Deacon wasn't romanceable I was so distraught I immediately went to Goodneighbor and got Hancock and then I realized that I also love him so now I'm just in this isosceles love triangle (given that one side is unrequited therefore unequal I hate myself is this a math pun make me stop)
> 
> anyway considermehacked.tumblr.com is me for more ghoul-banging, spy-loving, triangle-pun-making trash


End file.
